Tethyan Copper Company Ltd. TYC.AX - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

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http://www.tethyan.com.au/

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TYC.AX
http://au.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=tyc&d=t&m=a


http://minesite.com/archives/news_archive/2002/mar-2002/teth…

March 7, 2002



Tethyan Copper To Test Reaction To Pakistan Project Ahead Of Possible AIM Listing.

It was mighty convenient of the Pakistan government to grant Export Processing Zone status to the H4 Copper project, which is the most advanced of Tethyan Copper`s numerous copper projects at Reko Diq. Tethyan Copper is an unlisted 75.6 per cent owned subsidiary of the Australian nickel miner Mincor and it is just about to set off on a roadshow to London , New York and Toronto to test reaction to a possible listing on AIM.

The fact that this status provides relief from various taxes, including income tax, fixes in place the fiscal regime for the life of the future mine and exempts the project from foreign exchange controls and customs duties will certainly strengthen Tethyan Copper`s case. It is a difficult call as to whether fear of Pakistan post September 11th will outweigh the undoubted attractions of the project. A call to Inkerman, a British company specialising in high risk security audits worldwide, including hostile environments, and an adviser on kidnap recovery, emergency repatriation and insurance indemnification against ransoms paid and expenses incurred, gets an encouraging response.

Pakistan, despite having Afghanistan as a neighbour, is regarded as no more dangerous than many counties in West Africa where mining companies operate quite happily. Its secret service is one of the most efficient in the world, so if a project is favoured by the Federal Government the risk of terrorist disruption is cut significantly. This may be quite difficult for Australians to comprehend as they have no experience of these matters at close hand. Thanks to the media there was a general concensus during the Irish troubles that Northern Ireland was in a state of war and London under siege, when nothing could have been further from the truth.

David Moore, the managing director of both Tethyan Copper and Mincor, has clearly decided that it is better to list in London than try to eliminate prejudice at home. He wants to raise around £6 million to bring Reko Diq through a feasibility study, but reckons that it may have to be done in stages by raising an initial £1.5 million and then promoting the company to new investors.

Tethyan Copper was created specifically . to explore, finance and develop the huge copper resources at Reko Diq in alliance with BHP Billiton. Between October 2000 and February 2001 it carried out a drilling programme at the H4 Starter project which is just one part of the whole system. It is a zone of supergene enriched copper mineralisation, mostly chalocite, developed above a primary porphyry system in the centre of the Reko Diq Complex. From this drill data SRK Consulting estimated a total resource of 78 million tonnes at 0.7% copper using a 0.3% copper cut-off following a scooping study and a pit optimisation exercise.

Again it should be emphasised that H4 is only a part of a potentially huge copper-gold porphyry mine based on the resource potential of the nineteen known mineralised porphyry systems in the immediate area. The inferred resource for the four adjacent bodies of the Western Porphyries amount to 730 million tonnes grading 0.6% copper and 0.4 g/t gold at a 0.5% copper cut-off. Small wonder that the Pakistan government is taking an interest and that BHP Billiton has retained a claw- back right to the later stages of the whole project.




http://www.minesite.com/archives/features_archive/2004/jan-2…

January 5, 2004

Two Copper Floats Stand Out From The Long List Of ASX Flops – Tritton Resources And Tethyan Copper.

By Our Man In Oz

Prospecting in Australia is not a game restricted to the owners of old Land Rovers, hats with corks dangling around the rims, and a map of somewhere north-east of Kalgoorlie. City types can also indulge, though their fossicking is best restricted to the small mountain of documents dumped by the forty or so new floats which have been listed on the Australian Stock Exchange over the past 12-months. If there is a connection between the two forms of prospecting it lies in the chances of finding a nugget - gold for the boys in the funny hats, a quality investment for the less energetic.

Two floats worth a look longer than the sneer of contempt for members of the appallingly long list of float flops are Tritton Resources and Tethyan Copper Company . Unlike most of the recent offerings these two have performed admirably. Tritton has risen from its issue price of A$0.40c on Dececember 3 to trade in the first few days of the NewYear at A$0.66c. Tethyan is up from its issue price of A$0.30c on October 30 to A$0.43c. Apart from daring to be different by delivering a profit for the inaugural risk-takers, Tritton and Tethyan have a common link through their focus on the metal widely voted as being a potential star performer over the next few years, copper. After the metal connection, everything else is different.

Tritton, for readers with longish memories, is effectively a revival of the Girilambone copper project which once partly resided inside Straits Resources. During the 1990s this small project near Cobar in western New South Wales delivered useful, but not spectacular, profits for Straits which had a 60 per cent stake, and Nord Resources, owner of the remaining 40 per cent. Mining at Girilambone ended in April, 2000, though processing of heap leach ore continued until July this year.

The Tritton orebody, which was discovered by the original Straits/Nord JV in 1995, is the centrepiece of the new float of the same name. Nord has disappeared from view and Tritton ,which is 58 per cent owned by Straits, owns outright what will be an underground mine producing an estimated 24,000 tonnes of copper from ore averaging 2.7% copper over an initial 11-year campaign. Construction of the A$39 million mine is underway with the first metal scheduled for delivery into the market in the fourth quarter of 2004. Costs over the life of the project are estimated at US$60c a pound, comfortably under the US$1.00/lb current copper price.

Where Tritton has a small but potentially lucrative copper orebody close to production in a country with a stable economic and political environment, Tethyan is chasing very big game in a region which is close to being top of the global list for instability, uncertainty and risk. If in doubt, consider Tethyan’s primary asset, the Reko Diq prospect located in a triangle of ground of western Pakistan, and roughly 5km from Iran, and 3km from Afghanistan. It is not an exaggeration to say that drilling rigs in locations like this face a most unusual problem, U.S. aircraft operating to the north might pick up the rig on their radar and mistake it for a missile launcher. On Sardinia, drill rigs working on the Furtei goldmine of Gold Mines of Sardinia were occasionally targeted by NATO planes as part of their training runs, or just for the hell of it – much to the alarm of the crew as a Tornado zipped by, a few metres over the top.

The boys at Tethyan, naturally, play down the peril of their location. Investors should not. The risk of doing business in Pakistan is one factor. Being squeezed between Iran and Afghanistan is a totally different proposition, which explains why Tethyan has done well as a new float, but could do infinitely better if the political climate improves because there is just no doubt that Reko Diq is a copper monster in the making. Sporadic drilling over the past decade has revealed an inferred and indicated resource of 11 billion (yes, billion) pounds of copper and nine million ounces of gold. The potential is so big that Tethyan asks shareholders to simply wrap their minds around a “starter” project based on a single, well-drilled, resource known as H4.

Detailed analysis has taken H4 through to a scoping study stage with the chalcocite supergene mineralisation above a copper porphyry suitable for solvent-extraction, electro-winning. The initial capital requirement is put at US$133 million to create a mine producing 40,000 tonnes of copper a year over 15 years. No cash costs have been published but the studies were based on copper trading at between US$0.80c and US$0.90c a pound.

There is absolutely no doubt that Tethyan is sitting on an enormous copper/gold project, and that it has a valuable partner in BHP Billiton. There is also no doubt that the company has emerged from a quality parent in the Australian-based Mincor which has made a pile from nickel at Kambalda. They are the attractions. On the negative side there is the reverse effect of that old property investment slogan about the three factors which dictates price– location, location and location.

For investors with an eye on ’04 both Tritton and Tethyan represent an interesting package. Both have copper at their core. One, Tritton, is as close as possible to being a rock-solid certainty to get into production and deliver reasonable profits. The other, Tethyan, is a wild card with the potential to be one of the most exciting copper stocks of the next decade, just so long as investors remember the ultimate maxim of investing, caveat emptor (let the buyer beware).

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ISIN AU000000TYC9
WKN 985711

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Hoffentlich ist das nicht die Ivanhoenitis.